When Thomas Gouttierre, director of the Center for Afghanistan Studies at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, came to Scottsbluff in February 2002 to speak at Western Nebraska Community College, the little group began to feel a kinship with those distant people
Brotherly love from Nebraska Sister City
BY STEPHEN BUTTRY
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER
SCOTTSBLUFF, Neb. - From the high plains of Nebraska's Panhandle to the breathtaking mountains of Afghanistan, friendship is healing the wounds of war.
Five community leaders from the Scottsbluff area return home today after a trip offering help and hope to their Sister City - Bamiyan, Afghanistan.
"Virtually all the people we met in Bamiyan were friendly and eager to learn about us," said Dave Boeckner, a Scottsbluff City Council member and former mayor. "They are open, hard-working folk who just need a little hand up. And each one promised to help us in the future."
This month's visit to a country rebuilding after about 25 years of war is more than the travel and cultural exchange that Sister City relationships usually involve.
The Nebraskans want Afghans to come to Scottsbluff to learn how to be nurses and extension agents. They want to help Bamiyan's schools. They want a community in that distant and dangerous part of the world where people won't believe the radicals who describe Americans as evil.
For most Americans who didn't lose someone in the 9/11 attacks or send someone off to war, life soon returned to normal.
Not for this little band from Scottsbluff.
"We were asking, 'What could a community like ours do?'" said Marilyn Phillips.
A group of people who wanted to be a part - however small - of the solution to the hate that led to 9/11 began meeting weekly for breakfast and talk.
When Thomas Gouttierre, director of the Center for Afghanistan Studies at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, came to Scottsbluff in February 2002 to speak at Western Nebraska Community College, the little group began to feel a kinship with those distant people. Maybe, members thought, the answer was as simple as friendship.
They focused on Bamiyan as a possible Sister City because they saw similarities to Nebraska's Panhandle. Both are rural areas, high and dry country where farmers struggle to grow crops in stingy soil.
When UNO brought three groups of Afghan teachers to Nebraska starting in 2002, two of the three groups visiting Scottsbluff included teachers from Bamiyan.
Eventually, Bamiyan and Scottsbluff-Gering formally established ties through Sister Cities International. Mohammad Rahim Aliyar, governor of Bamiyan province, visited Scottsbluff in February.
Security concerns postponed initial plans for a Scottsbluff delegation to visit Bamiyan.
Boeckner, Marilyn and Paul Phillips, Jim Merrigan and Pam Cooper told about this month's journey and the Sister City efforts before they left and in e-mails from Kabul last week after their visit to Bamiyan and in phone calls to Kabul.
"The people here are tough because they've been through hell, yet open, friendly and optimistic," said Merrigan, a Scottsbluff real estate agent.
The group left June 7, arriving in Kabul nearly 40 hours later. Gouttierre, who already was in Afghanistan, accompanied the five western Nebraskans on their trip from Kabul to Bamiyan, along with Dr. Ward Chambers of the University of Nebraska Medical Center. The 120-mile trip in two SUVs took 11 hours. Aliyar sent a truck with four armed police.
The Americans talked of being greeted by most of the men of a village in one stop, and of singing a Dari song they had practiced.
The Nebraskans raved about the scenery.
"I hadn't been told we would be driving through the National Geographic magazine," said Cooper, a former aide in Sen. Chuck Hagel's Scottsbluff office and now regional director of the Conflict Resolution Center.
Merrigan, who grew up on a Nebraska farm, said of Bamiyan agriculture, "The methods are biblical."
There's hope of getting a federal grant to bring some Afghans to Nebraska for an eight-week agricultural training course.
Two other areas where Scottsbluff hopes to help its Sister City are health care and education. The group met with Zahraa Husaini, a second-grade teacher who had visited Scottsbluff in April. They also visited a classroom in Kabul.
The Nebraskans were guests at a state dinner hosted by Aliyar with about 40 military, religious and civic leaders.
The dinner was one of many reminders to the Nebraska women that strong gender differences remain even after the fall of the repressive Taliban.
"Any time I turned around, there were two or three sets of eyes pretty much staring at Marilyn and me," Cooper said. "That was a bit unnerving."
At the dinner, the Scottsbluff group extended an offer of two scholarships to Western Nebraska Community College for Bamiyan residents to come to Scottsbluff and study nursing. If the students can become proficient in English by January, they could start classes then.
"The health care is basically nonexistent in the countryside," said Dr. Paul Phillips, a retired physician.
Though the visit was too brief for much concrete help beyond the scholarship offer, the Nebraskans believe they can make a difference for their new friends. Merrigan said, "At this early stage, we collectively think that we have a great opportunity here, and it would be a travesty not to follow through."
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